The IRS is at risk for computer viruses because employees are e-mailing
chain letters, jokes, sexually oriented content and large graphic or picture
files in violation of the agency?s personal e-mail use policy.

Additionally, some e-mail servers are unsecured and unauthorized, said the
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in a recent report. A
major contributor to the vulnerabilities of the e-mail servers was that
system administrators had not installed current security patches to them,
TIGTA said.

?As a result, the IRS? internal network, its computers and the data
maintained on the network could be at risk of being compromised, destroyed
or shut down,? said Michael Phillips, deputy inspector general for audit, in
the report.